


Just by Being There

by Scrawlers



Series: The Space Between Our Hands [5]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance, wishshipping - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 01:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7294126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jounouchi returns home after his internship one afternoon to find Yuugi crying. It's the last thing he expected—or wanted—to see, but damn if Jounouchi isn't going to do his best to make Yuugi feel all right again regardless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just by Being There

**Author's Note:**

> This one takes place when they're living together in college, around a very specific time: Yuugi is twenty-four, Jounouchi is twenty-three, Yuugi has realized that he has romantic feelings for Jounouchi, and Jounouchi is still oblivious both to his own romantic feelings and to Yuugi's. That's the main point of specification you need, although the song Jounouchi sings in this can give you an even more specific idea of when this takes place.

It was one of those days, or so it felt, where nothing in the world could go wrong. To begin with, the weather was perfect: bright and sunny, with a persistent breeze that wove its way around the buildings of the city and brushed against your face just enough to take the edge off the heat. That morning, pedestrian traffic had been sparse, which made it easy for Jounouchi to make it to the radio station a little early, and on his way home from his internship he swung by the local smoothie shop to find that the line was all but empty, allowing him to dip in, grab an orange-pineapple-mango smoothie, and dip out without any hassle. He had texted Yuugi to see if he wanted anything, since he thought Yuugi was usually home at around this time in the afternoon, but didn't receive a response. That was fine, Jounouchi thought. Yuugi was probably just absorbed in his senior overview again. He got a large smoothie, just in case Yuugi wanted to share.

He was in such a good mood that by the time he made it home and jogged up the stairs to their apartment door, he had progressed from humming beneath his breath to outright singing the words that had been stuck in his head for the past several weeks courtesy of Orange Range releasing their newest single, and his station giving in to every phoned in request to play it. He bounced a little to the beat as he fished his keys out of his pocket and turned them in the lock, and as he stepped inside and kicked his shoes off by the door, he raised his voice to full volume, much more confident in his singing ability in his own home than he was out on the street.

" _Come on, baby, do the locomotion! Ah, ah—locolotion! Ah, a—_ Yuugi?"

The apartment Jounouchi shared with Yuugi wasn't very big, but it was big enough for the two of them. The front door opened on the living room, which took up two-thirds of the main room; the other one-third was taken up by the kitchen, which was to the right of the door, and all the way in the back. Jounouchi's and Yuugi's rooms were on either side of the apartment, the doors positioned along the dividing line between the living room and the kitchen, Jounouchi's on the far side of the apartment by the sofa, and Yuugi's on the side of the apartment by the television and front door. Their rooms faced each other, and though it was never a spoken upon agreement between them or even something they had ever talked about, neither of them ever really shut their bedroom doors. After all, they didn't have anything to hide from each other, and having the doors open all the time made it easy to talk even if they were in their respective rooms (or so Jounouchi felt, anyway).

But it was because Yuugi had his door open like normal that Jounouchi—on his way into the kitchen to grab a snack to go along with his smoothie—spotted Yuugi sitting on his bedroom floor, his knees drawn up to his chest, his back against the wall. Jounouchi had paused by the island counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, smoothie in hand, and as Yuugi looked up at him, he sniffed and quickly tried to wipe away the tears on his face with his arm. The warmth and cheer that Jounouchi had felt evaporated as quickly as a drop of water on a burning skillet, and he set his smoothie down on the counter before went to Yuugi, crossing the room in long strides before he dropped to his knees before him.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he said, and as Yuugi shook his head and rubbed the remaining tears out of his eyes with the palm of his hand, Jounouchi pressed, "What happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm not—it's nothing," Yuugi said, but his voice was still congested from crying, and Jounouchi frowned. Seeing this—and realizing, it seemed, that Jounouchi didn't believe him—Yuugi sighed. "I just—I got a call from my mom earlier. Grandpa's—he—he had a heart attack."

It was as if Jounouchi had swallowed a giant block of ice whole. For a second, he couldn't even really process what Yuugi had said—couldn't really fathom it, because even though Yuugi's grandpa was pushing eighty at this point (and was actually going to hit that age exactly in a few months, Jounouchi thought, though he couldn't be positive on that), there was something about the man that seemed somehow invincible to Jounouchi. Barring extenuating circumstances, like Kaiba torturing him with a virtual reality simulation or Pegasus using the Millennium Eye to remove his soul, it had always felt like nothing could take Yuugi's grandpa down, and certainly nothing as mundane as old age. Because of this, it was a bit of a struggle for Jounouchi to find his voice, and when he finally did (and was sure that he could keep it steady and calm, for Yuugi's sake if nothing else), he asked, "Is he—?"

"He's okay. He's going to be okay," Yuugi said, and Jounouchi's shoulders sagged in relief. Yuugi held up his cell phone for Jounouchi to see, though he was still squeezing it so tightly his knuckles were pale. "Mom called me about fifteen minutes ago to tell me. They're still at the hospital, but he's going to be okay. The doctors said it was just a small one, and he got there in enough time anyway."

"Thank god," Jounouchi said. Yuugi nodded, and pressed his lips tightly together as he looked away from Jounouchi, staring instead at the wooden legs of his desk chair. Jounouchi didn't miss the way Yuugi swallowed down a lump in his throat. "Are you—?"

"I'm fine," Yuugi said, but his voice cracked over the word _fine_ , and despite himself a few more tears slipped down his cheeks before he wiped them away. "It's just—I'm just being stupid. Grandpa's fine. Everything's okay. There's no reason to be upset."

"You're not stupid," Jounouchi said, and he crawled over so that he could sit against the wall as well, and put his arm around Yuugi's shoulders. "He's your gramps, Yuugi. It's okay to be upset about him . . . you know. Almost dying."

"Yeah, but he didn't die," Yuugi said. "He's okay now, so—"

"But you didn't know that at first, right?" Jounouchi said. Yuugi was quiet, but his silence was all the confirmation Jounouchi needed. "So it's okay if you're still upset. You didn't know. That's a lot for anyone to go through, especially considering how close you and Gramps are."

Yuugi hummed a little in what was either acknowledgement or agreement, or perhaps both. He took a deep, shaky breath through his nose, and after a moment he said quietly, "I just can't help but think . . . he was okay this time, but what about the next? He's—he's old. And this was—he wasn't even doing anything dangerous this time. It wasn't Kaiba-kun or Pegasus, it was just—"

"Old age. His own body," Jounouchi said. Yuugi nodded.

"He made it through this time, but what about next time? What if it's next week, or next month, or . . ." Yuugi lifted one hand as if to gesture to some other date, but then let it fall back to the carpet. "I don't—I'm not ready for that. Not yet."

"I don't think you're ever gonna be ready for that. That's not something anyone is ever really ready for. You can't really psyche yourself up for something like that, you know? You can't just say, 'Okay, I'm ready for my gramps to die now.' One, it would be kinda messed up if you did feel that way, and two, that would probably require you to stop loving the guy, and I can't see that happening ever."

Yuugi's bottom lip trembled, even as he swallowed again to try and regain composure. "Yeah, but—but that doesn't mean he has to die _now_ , or—"

"You don't want him to die any time soon. I get that," Jounouchi said, and Yuugi sniffed as he looked down again. "But the thing is, Yuugi, that any time is gonna be 'too soon.' Whether it's next week, or next month, or six years from now—whenever he croaks, it's gonna be too soon, and it's gonna hurt like a bitch. Probably it's gonna be one of the worst things you'll ever have to go through, no matter when it happens."

"Thanks," Yuugi said, his tone more than a little sarcastic.

" _But_ ," Jounouchi pressed on, ignoring Yuugi's sarcasm, "you're not gonna have to go through it alone. We—all of us—everyone who knows Gramps loves the guy, and we all love you, too. You're gonna lose Gramps, and I know that's gonna hurt you more than it'll hurt anyone else, but you'll still have all of your friends right there with you, _for_ you, through the whole thing. We'll help you get through it, no matter what."

Finally, the corners of Yuugi's lips tugged up in a hint of a smile. "Thanks," he said after a moment, his tone much more sincere this time.

Jounouchi smiled back, and briefly tightened his one-armed hug. "Don't mention it. So, are you gonna go up to the hospital to see him, or . . . ?"

"Yeah, I was planning to in a little bit. I was just waiting for you to get home. You don't have to come with, or anything, I just . . ." Yuugi huffed a small, sheepish laugh. "I just wanted to see you, first."

Jounouchi scoffed in the back of his throat. "What do you mean, I don't have to come with? What did I just get through saying? You don't have to do this alone, Yuugi. Not now, or ever. I'm definitely going with you to visit Gramps in the hospital, no doubt about it."

Yuugi looked up at Jounouchi, and rather than just the ghost of a smile Jounouchi had seen before, a real smile finally spread Yuugi's cheeks as he said, "Thank you, Jounouchi-kun. For that, and for . . . being here. I'm really glad you're here."

"Of course I'm here," Jounouchi said. "I'll always be here. You're stuck with me. Thought that'd be pretty obvious by now."

Yuugi snorted. "'Stuck.' Okay." He scooted a little closer into Jounouchi's embrace, and laid his head on Jounouchi's shoulder (as best he could, anyway, given Jounouchi's one-armed hug).

"Yep," Jounouchi said, and he grinned. "Stuck. So you better get used to it."

"That's the plan," Yuugi said softly. Jounouchi blinked, caught off-guard and unsure what Yuugi meant by that, but Yuugi didn't elaborate and so Jounouchi didn't say anything in response.

He had thought that they would go up to the hospital then, now that Yuugi had filled him in and seemed calmer. But Yuugi didn't seem to be in any hurry to move, and Jounouchi figured that any hospital worth its salt would want to keep Yuugi's grandpa there overnight anyway, just in case. There was plenty of time for Yuugi to decide when he was ready, and until then, Jounouchi was content to stay right where he was with his arm around Yuugi, and Yuugi's head on his shoulder. That was more than fine by him.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: One finds the other crying.


End file.
